THE ANTIPATHIES AND SYMPATHIES THAT EXIST BETWEEN AQUATIC ANIMALS

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Sunt et inimicitiarum atque concordiae miracula. mugil et lupus mutuo odio flagrant, conger et murena caudam inter se praerodentes. polypum in tantum locusta pavet, ut, si iuxta vidit omnino, moriatur, locustam conger; rursus polypum congri lacerant. Nigidius auctor est praerodere caudam mugili lupum eosdemque statis mensibus concordes esse; omnes autem vivere, quibus caudae sic amputentur. at e contrario amicitiae exempla sunt, praeter illa quorum diximus societatem, ballaena et musculus, quando praegravi superciliorum pondere obrutis eius oculis infestantia magnitudinem vada praenatans demonstrat oculorumque vice fungitur.

Hinc volucrum naturae dicentur.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

There are also marvellous instances to be found of antipathies and sympathies existing between them. The mullet and the wolf-fish are animated with a mutual hatred; and so too, the conger and the murena gnaw each other’s tails. The cray-fish has so great a dread of the polypus, that if it sees it near, it expires in an instant: the conger dreads the cray-fish; while, again, the conger tears the body of the polypus. Nigidius informs us that the wolf-fish gnaws the tail of the mullet, and yet that, during certain months, they are on terms of friendship; all those, however, which thus lose their tails, survive their misfortune. On the other hand, in addition to those which we have already mentioned as going in company together, an instance of friendship is found in the balæna and the musculus, for, as the eye-brows of the former are very heavy, they sometimes fall over its eyes, and quite close them by their ponderousness, upon which the musculus swims before, and points out the shallow places which are likely to prove inconvenient to its vast bulk, thus serving it in the stead of eyes. We shall now have to speak of the nature of the birds.